Funding shortfall for Sligo’s local roads means 10 year wait for 103 schemes to be completed

By Philip Rooney, The Sligo Champion

This week’s monthly meeting of Sligo County Council heard that based on the current level of funding under the CIS and LIS roads upgrade scheme, it will take 10 years to complete the 103 roads that are currently on the Council’s waiting list.

The Community Involvement scheme (CIS) involves partnership between the local authority and residents for the purpose of repairing potholes, surface dressing and drain maintenance.

The Local Improvement Scheme (LIS) provides funding to help local authorities carry out improvement works on private and non-publicly maintained roads.

The information was provided in response to a query from Cllr Dara Mulvey who asked for an update on the amount of successful applications awaiting funding under the CIS and LIS roads upgrade scheme.

In reply to his query Cllr Mulvey was informed, “The Community Involvement Scheme (CIS) is funded by the Department of Transport and administered by Sligo County Council on its behalf. The Council received an allocation of €473,000 in 2025 and this enabled the completion of works to 13 public roads under this Scheme. There are currently 103 schemes on the Council’s waiting list with an estimated grant value of €5,199,625. The allocation of funding for 2026 will be issued in Quarter 1 2026.”

Following on from this response, Cllr Mulvey asked that the Council send forward the motion and Council reply to Minister for Transport Darragh O'Brien TD seeking an increase in funding for these schemes as the current figures show it will be many many years before the current applicants will have their road resurfaced under the CIS scheme. If the government is not going to put the money into these schemes Sligo County Council will need to look at how it funds class 3 roads of which over 850km are located in south, west and east Sligo stated Cllr Mulvey.

Cllr Mulvey’s motion received widespread backing from his fellow Councillors with Cllr Gerard Mullaney saying, “The CIS scheme is in a critical situation,” adding “A few thousand people are effected by this.”

Cllr Mullaney called on the Government to allocate €2m per annum to clear the list of roads awaiting upgrade under the scheme.

Cllr Thomas Healy referred to an area where three houses have been built on a road awaiting works to be carried out noting, “It’s putting a lot of financial pressure on families.”

Cllr Joe Queenan agreed that €500,000 is not adequate at all while Cllr Thomas Walsh noted, “We are continuously taking new applications and that is something that we need to look at.”

Cllr Paul Taylor praised the work of Sligo County Council engineers before stating, “We need Government to back it. We do need to put pressure on the Government to try and double (the funding) for this year and next year. You’re talking about 10 years. The work that is being done is top class but we need more money.”

Cllr Michael Clarke added, “Minister Ross introduced those schemes. When the Green Party came into power they took the money from rural Sligo and put it into active travel, that is the facts.” Addressing Councillors from the Government parties, Cllr Clarke said, “Let them to talk to their Ministers instead of talking to us.”

Cllr Donal Gilroy proposed that “Perhaps a report on each area could be completed for March and then people can see exactly where the bottlenecks are.”

Article Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.